DeveloPassion's Newsletter - Month in review

DeveloPassion's Newsletter - Month in review
Hello everyone! I’m Sébastien Dubois, your host. You’re receiving this email because you signed up for DeveloPassion’s Newsletter. Thank you for being here with me ✨
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Welcome to the 91st edition
Another week, another newsletter! I hope that you all had a great one 🤩
I was super busy this week. My son Raphaël was with me the whole week (no kindergarten!), and it was quite a challenge to get anything done 😂
Still, I did manage to make solid progress toward my goals!
Alright, let’s goooooo 🚀
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Month in review and bootstrapping challenges
This month was quiet. Quiet because I was busy with life, and life was busy with me 😂
My most important “woo” of the month is the fact that I’ve finally published a YouTube video. I’m not proud of the result because I know about all the mistakes I’ve made and still have a ton to learn, but I’m proud that I did publish it.
The first step is often the hardest, and I certainly faced a steep slope.
My initial goal was to start publishing videos in September, but I pushed it back a few times. My perfectionist side certainly didn’t help, as I’ve ended up spending a ton more time than I should have researching/buying/configuring audio/video gear and lights.
This preparation phase was actually necessary for me to get past the “shame” of publishing something I considered too “amateur”. In reality, it was a form of procrastination that I need to fight against. I certainly could have recorded my first video using my phone and hit the publish button much sooner.
But what I did, even though much slower also let me learn a lot more about the whole video production process. I’ve learned the basics of video editing with Adobe Premiere, learned a ton about audio/video recording, how to properly light the room, etc
There’s still a lot more to learn, but I now know enough to repeat the process and waste much less time for the next videos. What I love about doing this is that I get to learn a ton of new things, and it’s always giving me so much energy!
This month, I’ve lost a lot of momentum on Twitter as I’ve been inactive. It annoys me, but I had to make choices between my personal life and work. And sometimes it’s really important to prioritize life over work :)
The Obsidian Starter Kit is still doing really well. In total, I’ve now sold 275 copies, generating ~$4.8K. Quite cool for a small experiment! In the coming month, my goal is to produce video content to enhance the kit with videos covering all aspects and providing more “hands-on” examples. My plan is to make the videos an optional buy for those interested in getting more and wasting even less time to get started with note-taking, PKM, and Obsidian.
I’ve started cross-posting my newsletter on LinkedIn and was quite surprised to see that I already have ~240 subscribers over there! I think that LinkedIn is valuable for reach.
This month, I’ve maintained the same revenue as the last few months: ~$800, all income sources put together (apart from my revenue as an employee and freelancer). I’m glad it stays stable for such a long period of time, but I want to add more income sources to improve the status quo. I’m also amazed that I still make ~$100 per month through Medium’s partner program, even though I’ve published so few articles recently.
Recent articles
No new article this week.
Quotes of the week
  • “Wise people know it’s impossible to be perfect. Best is to be less imperfect”
  • “Notes don’t matter. Information and knowledge do”
  • “If you want momentum, you’ll have to create it yourself, right now, by getting up and getting started” — Ryan Holiday
Book of the week
Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us
How cool is that?!
Thinking and learning links of the week
Summary of Chris Voss’s Masterclass on The Art of Negotiation | by Masterclass Notes | Medium
Cognitive Biases: Three Common Types Illustrated
Why Can’t You Tickle Yourself? Neuroscientists Unravel the Mystery | WIRED
Refind – Get smarter every day
Tech links of the week
Blog - Next.js 13 | Next.js
JSON to Zod Schema
Why React Re-Renders
Understanding useMemo and useCallback
GitHub - Qovery/Replibyte: Seed your development database with real data ⚡️
Indie Hacking and bootstrapping
I Cracked The Creator Content Funnel To Sell My Products On Auto-Pilot | by Ev Chapman | Medium
The Saturday Solopreneur | 4 Side Hustles to Earn $100,000+
This 30-year-old makes $114,000 a month in passive income: ‘4 businesses you can start today for $99 or less'

About Sébastien

Hello everyone! I'm Sébastien Dubois. I'm an author, founder, and CTO. I write books and articles about software development & IT, personal knowledge management, personal organization, and productivity. I also craft lovely digital products 🚀

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